A Sermon on Galatians 5:16-26 has been lightly edited.
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If you have your Bibles, I do ask that you would turn with me today to the book of Galatians. It’s Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia. Today we are going to be in Galatians chapter 5 verses 16 through 26.
We’re going to take a break for a few weeks from the book of Judges. Don’t worry, we will come back. We will complete the book.
But since the beginning of the year, God has just been talking to me through verses 22 through 24 of Galatians chapter 5 and the fruit of the Spirit. And I wanted to share some of that with you. And so we’re going to do a brief series, a mini series, if you will, on the fruit of the spirit.
Today, we’re going to do an overview of what is necessary for us, what is true about us in order to grow in the fruit of the spirit. And then we’ll spend a few weeks going through the fruit of the spirit. We may do one at a time. We’ll probably double up a few here and there.
But and then we’ll get back to the story of Gideon and the book of Judges. But this is a passage that is rich with life application. It’s a passage that is rich with what is true about us in our hearts because of the work of Jesus. And it’s a passage that I think we should all be familiar with and all should strive in the power of the Holy Spirit to put on these fruit of holiness. So with all that in mind, let us begin reading in verse 16 of Galatians chapter five.
“But I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
Let’s pray. Lord, we live by the power of your Holy Spirit and we are changed by your Holy Spirit working through your word. And so I ask today, O Lord, that you would open our eyes and open our ears, not only that we might see the glory of our salvation, but also so that we might walk more in step with the spirit. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
INTRODUCTION
When I went to seminary, I was fortunate and God in his providence provided significant scholarships for me to be able to go to seminary. Some of it came from the church that sent me to seminary. Some of it came from the seminary itself. But one of the things the seminary asks students who receive scholarships to do was to work in certain areas within the seminary. I began working in the admissions department, but then my dream seminary job came open and I applied for it. I started to work in the seminary bookstore.
Michelle’s chuckling over there because I came home with a lot of books from the seminary bookstore. As part of my job in the seminary bookstore, we would receive orders.
We would stock the books and we would check the books to see if they were damaged and needed to be sent back. And then we would take these books and we would move them into the different places within the bookstore where they were to be shelved. If you’ve ever been to a regular bookstore or a Christian bookstore, you know that the books are grouped by what they are.
There’s fiction over here and there’s in a secular bookstore, there’s self-help over here. And it’s very similar in a Christian bookstore as well, especially a seminary bookstore. You have theology books over here and then you have theology books with a different twist over here and then theology books with a different focus over here and then you get the picture.
It’s all theology books. But one section that was the largest section was the section called “Christian Living.” Now one of the reasons it was the largest section is sometimes authors write books that don’t neatly fit into the categories and so Christian Living section was kind of a catch-all section. If you don’t know where else it should be shelved, let’s just put it in the Christian Living section.
But another reason why the Christian Living section was so popular and so big in Christian bookstores is because that’s a great question, a large question on many people’s minds. How do I live as a Christian? How do I live out my faith? How do I… you fill in the blank.
When it comes to living as a Christian, how do I do it? It’s a great question. It’s a good question. But it needs to be preceded by other questions. It’s not only how do I live, but what is true about me that makes it possible for me to live in the way that God calls me to live.
That’s what I want us to talk about today as we look at this overview before we dive into each of the fruit of the Spirit. Or actually there are nine different facets of the fruit of the Spirit which we could call holiness. Which spirit gives us these fruit? It’s the Holy Spirit. And so these are a definition of what holiness is, not a complete definition of what holiness is, but a definition of what holiness is and different facets of holiness that we live in our life.
But before we try to live out the fruit of the Spirit, we have to understand something that is true about us. And we will look at that under the heading of union with Christ today. Today we are going to look at the two different ways to walk. We’re going to look at union with Christ being the answer to walking with the Spirit. And then we’re going to look at the works of walking in the flesh versus the fruit of walking in the Spirit. And all of us, all of this to help us see that because we are united with Christ, we are holy. And then we should live holy lives as well.
HOW DO YOU WALK?
So first the question, how do you walk? And Paul gives us two different ways that people can choose to walk in this life. And he also points out consequences of those. Now, first he says to walk by the Spirit, And this is in contrast with walking by the flesh.
Now, what does Paul say when he talks about walking by the Spirit and walking by the flesh? He’s not talking about some idea to where all flesh is evil, all physical matter is evil, and we’re just trying to get to some disembodied spiritual heavenly existence to where we do away with all the physical. He’s talking theologically here.
To help us understand a little bit, we could go to Romans chapter 5 and see where Paul says that we are either in Adam or we are in Christ. To be in Adam means to be moved by the desires of the flesh, to be controlled by our sin nature, to be controlled by our own lusts and passions. That’s what he means when he says that we walk in the flesh.
If we walk in the flesh, we are doing what we want. If we walk in the flesh, we are doing what our desires want rather than being controlled by the Spirit. Now, he does give a warning here.
He says if you are walking by the flesh, if you do the works of the flesh, which we will look at here a little bit later, he says those who do such things or keep on doing such things will not inherit the kingdom of God because they will be judged by the law.
Have you ever gossiped about somebody? Have you ever told another person something about a third person that’s not exactly true in order to get advantage or to look more important than the other person? That’s walking by the flesh. That is gratifying the desires of the heart.
And those who habitually do those types of things, Paul says, will not see the kingdom of God because they will be judged by that very law that they put their hope in. Walking by the flesh also means that you can put your hope in your own righteousness to appease God. And so Paul says when we walk by the flesh, we are in danger of being judged by the very law that we claim to be keeping and we will not see the kingdom of God.
Well, what does it mean to walk by the Spirit in light of that? Well, it means to be controlled by what the Spirit, how the Spirit says we are supposed to live. Paul in Ephesians chapter 2 says that we are dead in our sins and our trespasses, but God has made us alive in Christ.
It is the Holy Spirit who comes upon us and makes us alive in Christ. He gives us a heart that’s in tune with what God wants, with what God demands of us. And we walk in the Spirit when we allow the Spirit to lead us to holiness, to lead us to righteous living.
How can we know that we are being led by the Spirit? Well, if you were a Christian, you are being led by the Spirit. If you are not habitually exhibiting the works of the flesh, you are being led by the Spirit. But there are three specific ways that Jerry Bridges points out that we can know we are led by the Spirit.
The first is to ask yourself, are you growing in the fear of the Lord? What does it mean to fear the Lord? Think of Isaiah chapter 6 or Revelation chapter 4 and 5. Isaiah and John are transported into the throne room of God.
They see God in all his glory and all his majesty seated upon his throne. The angels, the seraphim are flying around God, singing his praises with their eyes covered because they cannot, even in their perfection, even in their glory, they cannot handle the majestic glory of God. Are you overwhelmed with the majesty of God when you read about it in the Scripture or when you see it in creation? Are you floored by how glorious he is? Or do you see passages that talk about the heavens declare the glory of God or John and Ezekiel and Isaiah and any other person to come into contact with the glory and majesty of God fall flat on their face? Do you read those passages and you go, oh that’s kind of interesting, but you know, not me. We should be growing in our fear of the Lord if we are walking with the Spirit.
The second thing that we can know that we are walking with the Spirit is if we are growing in our love for God. Chris, this gets to what you were saying earlier. You hear “Amazing Grace,” you start to sing Amazing Grace and you are moved to tears. As we read the scriptures, not only are we confronted with the majesty and the glory and the power and the greatness of God that grows our fear for God, but we are also confronted with the truth that wretch, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” Wretch is not a strong enough word to describe who we are apart from Christ.
Isaiah, confronted with the glory of God, says “I deserve to be disintegrated. I deserve to be undone. I deserve to be pulled apart molecule by molecule because I am a sinner.”
And yet, instead of pulling us apart molecule by molecule, instead of leaving us in that position of being wretches, God sent his son to die on the cross to take our punishment, the punishment for our sin, so that he could pour out that amazing grace upon us. That was an act of love by the Triune God. Are you so overwhelmed by the love of God that you are moved to love him more and more? Are you so overwhelmed by the grace and mercy of God that you cannot help but look at him and say, “God, I want to love you more deeply. I want to grow in my love for you”
And the third thing Jerry Bridges says that we should be growing in is in our desire for God. Each of these are related. Earlier, I prayed based upon Psalm 42. The first two verses of Psalm 42 says,
“As a deer pants for flowing streams. So pants my soul for you, O God, my soul thirst for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?”
Knowing how majestic God is, knowing how much of a wretch you are, yet a wretch covered by the grace of God. Do you desire nearness with God? Do you desire to be close to him? Is it like, you know, we went through a heat wave this this last week. We were out doing some hiking and some sightseeing.
We went to Thurman on Monday. It was mid 90s and I’m pretty sure the humidity was somewhere in the mid 200 percent. I don’t know.
But we got done walking through Thurman. We spent an hour probably walking around, looking at the buildings, looking at the train tracks, looking at the old machinery there. And we were thirsty. We were parched. We were dry. We were sopping wet from the sweat.
We desperately wanted something to drink.
Do you want God that badly? Do you desire to be near God that much? That’s what it means to desire God, to grow in our walk with the spirit. And that’s what Paul calls us to do.
UNION WITH CHRIST IS THE ANSWER
He says to stop walking according to the flesh and to begin walking by the spirit. But something has to be true about us before we can move from walking in the flesh to walking in the spirit. And that Paul gets to the answer to that in near the end of this particular passage in verse 24, he says,
“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and with its desires.”
And the answer to the question, what moves us from walking in the flesh to walking in the spirit is found in the doctrine called union with Christ. We are united to Christ. We are united with him and his death.
Our sinful nature has been put to death, the passage says here, and we have been raised to new life as we’re told in places like Colossians or, or second Corinthians chapter five, which we’ll look at in a few moments.
What is union with Christ? Sam Allberry gives a word picture, an analogy of union with Christ, but talking about an airplane.
Let’s say you want to travel from Lewisburg to Chicago and you book a flight that leaves from the Lewisburg airport and flies to what is it O’Hare in Chicago. Now, time comes for your flight to leave. Should you be on top of the airplane? No, not at all.
Should you be under the airplane? Well, that’s probably a worse place to be than on top. Should you just follow the airplane? Hey, I know Chicago is basically in that direction and I saw the plane go off in that direction. So I’m just going to do my best to keep up with the plane.
No, where should you be? You should be in the plane, shouldn’t you? Because at that moment, when you are in the plane, whatever is true about that airplane is now true about you. If I know you’re traveling to Chicago, I can ask, did the plane make it to Chicago? And it’s the same thing as asking, did you make it to Chicago? To be in Christ means that whatever is true about Jesus is true about you.
Did Jesus walk with the spirit? Yes. If you are in Christ, you walk with the spirit. Did Jesus exhibit the fruit of the spirit in his life? Absolutely. And he did it perfectly. If you are in Christ, the fruit of the spirit are yours right now.
It’s not another list to check off. It’s not another law to keep. It is what is true about you right now. Yes, we might have to do a little bit of work or some of us a lot of work, to develop these fruit more and more. But the truth is, Paul, God through Paul, is calling you to live out a truth that is yours right now because you are in Jesus Christ.
Do you need to work on kindness? You are kind in Christ, so live kindly. Do you need to work on peace? Well, you have peace in Christ. Develop it and live like it.
This idea of union with Christ is not just some pie in the sky academic study. It is the power for our Christian walk, for our Christian lives. And if you’re not united with Christ and you are pursuing the fruit of the Christ, you’re just trying to live by another law.
You’ve just exchanged the Ten Commandments for the nine fruit of the Spirit. But because we are in Christ, these fruit of the Spirit are ours and we can live them out.
Now, this involves two things. This involves, as Paul says elsewhere in his letters, putting off the old man.
Paul says here “For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”
We are free from bondage to sin, but we are not free from the influence of sin. You know, if you’re a Christian and the Holy Spirit has come into your life and given you that new living heart, do you know you don’t have to sin anymore? When you do sin, it’s a choice. You don’t have to do it anymore. But if you’re in Christ, Paul says to put off those old habits.
Now it’s going to be a battle and it’s going to be a battle until you see Jesus face to face. But the Spirit has already won that battle on your behalf. And if you are in Christ, you are victorious over sin.
So we put off the fleshly desires, we put off the sins that have already been put to death in Christ, and we put on holiness. We put on the robes that have been given to us by the Spirit. We put on love, we put on joy, we put on peace, we put on kindness.
We are new creations in Christ, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5. And because God is at work in us, Philippians 2:13, we are able to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And so we are called to walk by the spirit rather than walking by the flesh. And we are able to do so because we are united to Christ in our salvation.
WORKS VS. FRUIT
And then the last thing I want to look at just briefly is this idea of work versus fruit. He says in verse 19, “Now the works of the flesh are evident.” I don’t have time to go into these works of the flesh, but I do want us to notice something.
We get hung up on the first three and then the last one. We get hung up on the sexual sins that are listed there and we forget the majority of the sins that are here that are relational sins. Gossip, slander, argumentativeness, hurtful sarcasm, anger.
Those are evident to all. But Paul is very intentional. I was explaining this to somebody earlier this week and they’re like, when they heard me say it the way I said it, they were like, oh man, that makes so much sense.
But he compares the works of the flesh versus the fruit of the spirit. Works versus fruit. What do you get when you work for something? You get wages, right? What does Paul say in Romans 6:23?
“For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
If we are doing the works of the flesh, we get death. If we have been grafted into the vine, that true vine, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who says in John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. If you abide in me, I will abide in you. And whoever remains in me will bear much fruit.”
If you are in Christ, these fruit of the spirit will grow in your life.
If you are walking according to flesh, you are working for God’s judgment and God’s wrath. And that is what you will receive.
CONCLUSION
So what’s the most important thing we need to know about the fruit of the spirit? They are ours in Christ Jesus. You are working for something that already belongs to you in Christ Jesus.
Just a couple of things I want to focus on to wrap up here. When he talks about the works of the flesh and he says that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, that word do in the original language is in a tense, a verb tense that shows continuing, ongoing action.
And so it could read as if you’re reading in the ESV, your footnote says, “It says those who make a practice of doing these things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” We still battle against sin every day. And if you stumble and fall into sin, that’s not what Paul is talking about here. He’s not calling you to perfection.
But if you are convicted of a sin in your life, whether it’s through reading and studying the Scriptures, whether it’s through a brother or sister loving you enough to come to you and say, “Hey, I see this going on in your life and let me walk with you through this back toward holiness,” whatever it is, if God convicts you of a sin in your life and you look at that sin and you say, you know what? I’m kind of okay with it. Don’t worry about me.
It’s a dangerous place to be as someone who claims to be a Christian, because it may be a sign. And I don’t like saying things like this. It may be a sign that your profession is false.
And this passage is a warning to you to make sure that your heart is in the right place, that you have truly been converted, that you truly believe that the Holy Spirit has truly put you in a place where you are on the plane, not just running along behind it. And so that means when we think about the fruit of the Spirit and the work of the flesh, we who claim to be Christians need to examine our hearts to make sure we are truly repentant over the sins that are revealed as we study these things.
But if you’re not a Christian, then the warning definitely applies to you. And I would encourage you to make sure you understand what it is that you are rejecting, understand what it is that you don’t believe, because salvation is freely offered to all. I would encourage you to talk to me at some point soon. Talk to somebody in this church who can explain to you what is necessary to be a Christian and will walk with you along that path.
And then lastly, I want to make sure you understand, please don’t let this series overwhelm you. You know, if you’re anything like me, when when God first kind of started honestly hitting me over the head with a two by four named the fruit of the Spirit this year, you know, it’s like, oh, goodness, I’ve got to love perfectly. And I don’t know that that’s getting overwhelmed.
That’s turning this into a law. Rest in the spirit. Rest in the finished work of Jesus. Yes, it’s hard work, but it’s work that has been done for you by Jesus and is yours. So learn, grow, changed, change, but don’t get overwhelmed by this pursuit of the spirit. They are yours in Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray. To the great father above. We do thank you for the truth that we are united by the power of the Holy Spirit, united to Christ. And Lord, help us to live out of the glory of that truth as we pursue growing in holiness, growing in the fruit of the spirit. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
As we go this week, take this blessing upon you.
“Grace and peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and father.”
He who testifies to these things says, Yes, I am coming soon.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
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